The Bingo Palace

Rating:
Summary: Richly told, but too mythic
Review: Erdrich's latest novel of modern native American life centers on a bright, but aimless young man. Lipsha Morrisey is adrift, one foot in America, one on the North Dakota reservation. Son of a crazy woman and a convict, the tribe has given up on the young man who once showed promise - a product of families recalled from Erdrich's previous books "(Love Medicine," "The Beet Queen," "Tracks").

Summoned back to the reservation by his grandmother for reasons that never come clear - a last chance to make something of himself as an Indian? Lipsha falls in love with the beautiful Shawnee Ray, who's slated to marry the tribal entrepreneur, her son's father, Lyman Lamartine. Lyman is handsome, muscled, skilled in tribal traditions, worldly wealthy and ambitious for tribal power and American success. He is all that Lipsha is not.

But Lipsha believes the strength of his love is a match for all of Lyman's assets. Endowed with his mother's luck, granted him in a vision devoid of love, Lipsha begins to win at Bingo. For Shawnee Ray he amasses unearned wealth, squanders his spiritual power, dreams of greatness in his future, and wastes his present in floundering and backsliding.

Although Lipsha's present is the primary focus, the novel dips into the past with chapters centered around other tribal members including both his grandmothers, his mother, Lyman, Shawnee Ray, and Zelda Kashpaw,Lipsha's aunt and Shawnee's self-appointed guardian. There's also a Greek Chorus sort of voice that speaks with the whole tribe's sorrowful wisdom.

This organization keeps a certain distance between the novel and the reader. Lipsha's obsession widens the gulf. His hunger for Shawnee Ray so overwhelms that it bores. Shawnee becomes the focus of Lipsha's every act but there's so little contact between them that passion never develops into love. Lipsha never develops at all.

Erdrich's prose is vivid and spare, always flowing, moving. Every sentence seems infused with the long history, hardship and spiritual mystery of Indian life. Her characters are enigmatic and firmly anchored in the Dakota setting. But for all this richness, the story never connects, remaining more mysterious than moving. Readers of her earlier novels, who can place this one in a wider context, should enjoy the book more than new readers who may be left cold by too-brief glimpses into too many hearts.

Rating:
Summary: Bits are wonderful, but still my least favorite of Erdrich's
Review: Erdrich's novels are all about the same characters and setting, and people and stories overlap and intertwine. But this is the only novel that doesn't feel complete in and of itself. Parts of the book are simply wonderful--particularly, Lipsha's account of how he came to get a tatoo. Worth the price of admission for that story alone--but still, for an Erdrich fan, a bit of a disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Not at the same level
Review: I fell in love with Louise Erdrich after reading her short story "Fleur". There was something gritty and seductive about her characters.

Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, Tracks and this book are all part of a saga. The Bingo Palace is the last one in the series (i believe). There is a big sense of despair in the multiple narrators. It is almost like they know their lives cannot possibly get any better. I found the book depressing and a bit lackluster compared to the previous ones.

Rating:
Summary: Not at the same level
Review: I fell in love with Louise Erdrich after reading her short story "Fleur". There was something gritty and seductive about her characters.

Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, Tracks and this book are all part of a saga. The Bingo Palace is the last one in the series (i believe). There is a big sense of despair in the multiple narrators. It is almost like they know their lives cannot possibly get any better. I found the book depressing and a bit lackluster compared to the previous ones.

Rating:
Summary: Unexpected enjoyment in an off-the-wall world
Review: I had not expected to like this book... when I began it, I was sure that I would have to force myself to the end because I tend to like the romantic happily-ever-after sort of story, but once I began, Erdrich caught me in the absurdities of the world of Lipsha. I have read many reviews that do not find Lipsha an especially likable character, but I liked him despite the fact that he was the sort who would instinctively choose the wrong way to do anything. The sheer absurdity of Erdrich's work, including a food fight in Dairy Queen between romantic rivals, a vision quest that brought forth a talking skunk, and a ghostly mother who wanted the T-bird that her insurance money bought, adds just enough humor to make even the defeats of Lipsha amusing rather than tragic. The book is worth a try, especially if seen in terms of Lipsha's returning home to find the kinship with the land that he had lost -- a slow healing process. The skunk tells him, "It ain't real estate," and at the base of all the other adventures he begins to realize this, but as with so many young people, the discovery is slow coming and fraught with disasters